NFPA Fast-Tracking Active Shooter Response Standard Following Parkland Shooting

The new standard establishes preparedness, response and recovery benchmarks with a focus on integrated protocol and civilian and responder safety.

The NFPA announced Feb. 14 that it is fast-tracking a new standard for active shooter responses due to what it described as a “rising toll of active shooter and hostile events.”

The NFPA will process NFPA 3000, Standard for Preparedness and Response to Active Shooter and/or Hostile Events, as a provisional standard, which means it would be available for use as early as April 2018.

NFPA officials say this is only the second time in NFPA’s 121-year history that provisional standard status has been authorized by the NFPA Standards Council.

“Provisional standards are developed when there is a serious life safety concern that warrants an abbreviated standards development process,” the organization’s statement read. “The typical standards cadence is condensed so that a standard can be issued in a shorter time period in the interest of the public; and in this case, first responder safety. The tragic trend of hostile events in the United States prompted the NFPA’s Standards Council to authorize processing of the provisional standard.”

The group added that NFPA 3000 will be useful worldwide, but especially in the United States because 31 percent of all public mass shootings occur here.

“Hostile events are happening with greater frequency and ferocity today,” NFPA President Jim Pauley said. “It’s critical that we take steps to protect people from this increasing threat. By employing the unified response outlined in NFPA 3000, first responders, facility managers, hospital officials, and community members can minimize risk before, during, and after these devastating incidents. We were clearly hearing the need for such a standard from those on the front lines. Through this process, we are able to respond quickly to provide a critical body of knowledge to those who are faced with such horrendous events, ultimately making them and the public safer.”

The new standard establishes preparedness, response and recovery benchmarks with a focus on integrated protocol and civilian and responder safety. When issued, it will provide guidance for organizing, managing and sustaining an active preparedness and response program.

Work on it began in October 2016, shortly after the Pulse Nightclub incident. A new NFPA Technical Committee consisting of representatives from the Department of Homeland Security; Department of Justice; the FBI; NSA; national police, fire, and EMS organizations; hospitals; private security; and universities was formed and initial public comments were gathered in only four months.

The Standards Council unanimously approved the new standards project and development of NFPA 3000 began in June 2017.

You can view the NFPA 3000 fact sheet here.


This article originally appeared on SSI sister publication Campus Safety.

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Zach Winn is a journalist living in the Boston area. He was previously a reporter for Wicked Local and graduated from Keene State College in 2014, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in journalism and minoring in political science.

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